This is unsubstantiated sensational bs. Plastics do end up in landfill or incinerator, but the US does not have waterway pollution problem.
https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
Most American and European plastic waste finds its way into landfills.
"In the chart below we see the global distribution of mismanaged plastic waste aggregated by world region. The East Asia and Pacific region dominates global mismanaged plastic waste, accounting for 60 percent of the world total.
There is a wide gap between East Asia and the other regions — South Asia ranks second but contributes around 5 times less with 11 percent of the total. This is followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (9 percent); Middle East & North Africa (8.3 percent); Latin America (7.2 percent); Europe and Central Asia (3.6 percent) and North America (1 percent).
If we aim to address the ocean plastic problem, an understanding of this global picture is important. It highlights the fundamental role of waste management in preventing ocean pollution; whilst countries across North America and Europe generate significant quantities of plastic waste (particularly on a per capita basis), well-managed waste streams mean that very little of this is at risk of ocean pollution. "
Now that Asia has mainly stopped accepting recycling - much of which is too contaminated before it gets out of the bale or container to recycle so gets illegally dumped or burned - even more goes to Africa instead. Except all countries that have had some part in recycling and try and stop or restrict it find they have a major problem of illegal imports and illegal processing - which is easier to stop than the containers. See for instance the Philippines vs Canada recently.
so the West is exporting what seems to inevitably become an illegal industry to every country stupid enough to join in.
If we just banned export and dumped it all in landfill again the world would be better off.
If a country sends plastic waste to Asia and then it's mismanaged there, what country gets the blame for mismanagement in those statistics?
And here are statistics on the trash gathered[2]. 649,236 plastic bags, 880,646 plastic bottles, and plenty of other miscellaneous plastic pieces. All of this disrupts natural ecosystems, and is ingested by animals who then get sick, and later gets into us as microplastics when we ingest the animals. This is the reason nearly all of our food and beverages contain microplastics.
If this doesn't seem that bad, the above example is from a single stream into a single harbor in a single city. Now imagine the national scale.
But plastic isn't the only pollutant of US waterways. Bacterial matter, nutrient excess, and industrial toxins regularly find their way through the watershed into main waterways, affecting marine life as well as humans. Waterway pollution is a big issue in the US.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=GgnTBxSMo3g [2] http://blogs.ubalt.edu/ubmag/the-problem-of-plastics/
If we're talking specifically about plastic pollution in waterways, the USA is nowhere close to the top of the list for that particular problem.
In the USA, we have the means to recycle most plastics, but there needs to be political will to get it done. Merely relying on industries to make a profit off of plastic recycling is not nearly sufficient.
We need to enact more regulations to ensure that more products are make with recyclable materials, that the products themselves can easily be recycled, and provide incentives to actually do the recycling. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and in the current political climate, little political will to get it done. This is a big problem in the USA.
[1] Christian Schmidt, Tobias Krauth and Stephan Wagner (2017), Export of plastic debris by rivers into the Sea
Us: You need to clean up the Yangtze.
Them: Well what are you doing about your plastic waste
Us: We're shipping it to you!
"Their fault, nothing to do with us"
This is blaming the recipient of the bullet for the shooting.
I've slowly ended up thinking that simply dumping it in landfill is less harmful, but not as good as producing less in the first place. Which is still a point in favour of your state's reluctance to recycle.
Or ordering from. Their pollution is funded by you.
Yes. Unless we do. Which we are. And it ends up in the water. And we remain responsible for the foreseeable consequences of our actions.
I assume this is still happening but there have been several exposés, leading some people to no longer bother recycling. As a reaction to that some city/area councils will fine you for not separating recyclables; our city vastly reduced the size of our bins (trash cans).
Most of our family waste seems to be unrecyclable plastic packaging.
It reminds me of eco-tourism. Its fun/satisfying to be part of 'recycling', so folks make up steps they can do to participate more, and end up torpedoing the whole point of it.
The US exports by far the most. Much is poorly washed or sorted, regardless of which nation sent it, often so it's not suitable for recycling - plastic recycling is very easy to contaminate.
When countries push back and restrict imports they find they have an illegal industry that starts mislabelling containers, and illegal factories spring up.
Now it's "their fault".
Australia ships toxic waste to Denmark, is that problematic in it self? No! Because a danish company offers services for safe disposal. If that company just dumbed the barrels of toxins in the ocean, would Australia be responsible?
https://www.amazon.com/Plastic-China-Jiu-liang-Wang/dp/B06XT...
TL;DW: The producers find the cutest little girl in all of China, living in abject poverty amid toxic squalor.